YowCH & Grace

The website server was down from Tuesday afternoon until Wednesday afternoon. The reason given by the host is that the operating system (Linux) was lost! and although the data was intact, it might not be recoverable! That means the loss of all the blog entries! After the site recovered (thank god!) we started a a new operational procedure to have regular back-up of the blog files.

YowCH bought a new $50 guitar stand with 5 slots, now the guitars are nicely stacked and takes up less space in the house.

Compare to the older chaotic ‘layout’:

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Sunday started with breakfast at the neighbourhood, then we boiled some Chinese herbs given to YowCH by his colleague, Law KH, for his cough.

That’s lemon grass 香茅, dried orange 桔饼, Chinese mint 薄荷, red onions 红葱 and water, boiled for 1/2 hour. Nice soothing drink.

Then we went for the swim lessons. David is almost swimming, Joseph is still playing around, but Esther is able to do 50m free-style. Grace went 200m and YowCH was rather sick, so he did a casual 200m.




Samuel had some pool time, too, at the deep pool!

Then we went for soccer and ballet, followed by a dinner to celebrate David’s birthday, with Gene. We had a hearty meal at O’Leary’s at the Singapore Flyer, David’s kind of food.



Here’s David and his food.

And this is the birthday cake (brownie with ice-cream).

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It was tough when Grace is not around on Saturday, Samuel is dependent and things are not as fun, especially with YowCH having a bad cough. Nevertheless, we try to have some fun.

In the morning, we sent Grace to work, then had some snacks just before Esther and David went for their Chinese lessons.

Then YowCH brought Joseph and Samuel home for some TV time.

After tuition, we went for lunch at Colbar.

Then we spent 45 minutes cycling. YowCH coached Esther and David in sliding stop and drift-cornering, while trying to get Joseph to cycle.

At 3:00pm, Esther went for her Youth Service at Church, while YowCH practiced with David for the Junior Praise worship leading. Joseph took this photo of YowCH playing the guitar and David on the cajon (pronounced “kah-hon”, a drum instrument).

Then Grace finished work and joined us at Church service. We had a quick dinner followed by the Church Annual General Meeting, and thereafter, we reach home at 11:00pm.

A very busy Saturday.

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Rain returned to Singapore on Sunday, heavy at Redhill from 11:00am to 3:00pm. With the end of the rain at 3:00pm, we went for soccer training at West Coast Park, and Ben brought 2 goal-posts borrowed from PA. These are inflatable posts and rather sturdy. While it rained, the ground wasn’t muddy as the water was soaked into the parched earth immediately. We ended early as the rain restarted with very dark clouds.

After soccer, we met up with YowCH’s parents, Yan and Loon again for dinner, this time Chinese food at Tunglok Teahouse at China Square.



The food was great, and particular mention to a nice dessert, which is yam-sticks coated with sugar-icing.

We have also updated our family icon photo on the upper-right of this page.

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Loon, Daren and YowCH’s parents came over to Singapore for a short holiday. We met up for dinner last night at Star Vista Morganfield’s, together with Yan and family.



We had good ribs, roast chicken and lamb chops, plus margarita and virgin mojitos.

The Fujifilm F550EXR camera, always with YowCH, died mechanically (the lens cannot move) on 12 March. We took 9000 photos (with some videos) with this F550. After arranging with a seller on Clubsnap, he picked up another 2nd hand Fujifilm F500EXR (no GPS compared to the F550) for $150.

The F500 is in the foreground in both photos below:

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David came back from Scout camp with a new badge, and some goodies. The goodies because he was selected by the teachers to be the best Scout of the camp!

There were about 30 Scouts at the camp, held at St. Joseph Institution Junior (at Moulmein, near United Square). He was running a fever and had coughs, but the appeal of the camp was too great, and he struggled through the two nights.

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The Suzuki guitar was broken earlier before Christmas, and after YowCH fixed it, it still plays rather well, so the set (guitar, cable and amp) has been moved to T.Y.Lin office for lunchtime and after-work playing.

On Friday, 7 March, David left for Scout camp at 4:00pm, and will return on Sunday 12:45pm.

We got a second hand Fender Mustang II amp for $200, big, powerful and nice sound.

Here’s the guitar to scale:

And this is the current guitar family at home:

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Last weekend was terribly hot and dry, having no rain in Singapore for over 1 month! The Joseph near the middle and David at the right.

And here are the boys with the participation medals from last week’s PA event at Jalan Besar.

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David joined the Scouts this year, and the Investiture ceremony was held this morning at Gan Eng Seng Secondary School (near River Valley).


The attending parent, Grace (as YowCH was at office in-house training), symbolically put the scarf on during the ceremony.

This is David in his uniform.

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YowCH started training Joseph in his cycling after a few months of break, learning to balance now:

Here is our favourite “O” at Block 38:

We got some new pets from Ezra, mealworms and beetles.

On Sunday, West Coast Junior Team participated in the People’s Association Soccer Carnival at Jalan Besar, starting at 8:00am (we arrived slightly late at 8:15am):

This is the younger team:


David played well (goalkeeper and striker):

Joseph was on defence:

YowCH was coaching the younger team:

This is the team photo (many could not attend the Sunday morning event):

The carnival ends at 2:30pm, but we left early to attend swimming class at 12:15 at Delta.

Updated 03 March 2014: Participation medals for the boys.

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